


Take My Heart This Christmas

by apanoplyofsong



Series: let your heart be light [5]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5506493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apanoplyofsong/pseuds/apanoplyofsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke keeps telling Bellamy he doesn't need to rely on a Christmas decoration to get affection. He doesn't listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Heart This Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from [this](http://apanoplyoffic.tumblr.com/post/135427931297/izazov-christmas-themed-prompts-our-flight) list. 
> 
> Title from Lenka's "All My Bells Are Ringing."

Clarke comes home three days before Christmas to Bellamy’s denim-clad ass directly in her line of sight.

She stops just inside the duplex, door slamming behind her. “What the fuck?”

It’s not that it’s unusual to see Bellamy in her house. Clarke had met Octavia, his sister, while looking to sublease the spare bedroom two years ago, and the Craigslist ad had turned into a serendipitous friendship with mutually beneficial living arrangements. Bellamy had come with Octavia. Somehow, during their debates over the importance of considering World War II when dealing with the refugee crisis and whether _Daredevil_ or _Jessica Jones_ had gotten better Netflix adaptations, he had wormed his way into Clarke’s inner circle of friends and now held no qualms about simply letting himself into their place with his “emergency” key. Hell, he spends as many nights curled up on the daybed Clarke keeps in her office-slash-studio as at his own apartment.

It’s not even that she’s opposed to seeing Bellamy’s ass first thing upon coming home. It’s a good ass. She’d be cool with seeing more of it, generally speaking.

It’s just that it’s not usually five feet above the ground as Bellamy stands on the ladder they keep in the laundry nook, fiddling with something over the entryway to the living room.

“Oh, hey, you’re home.” He’s twisted so he can peer at her over his shoulder, crooked smile on his face, and Clarke just snorts and sheds her coat, throwing her keys in the bowl she placed on a kitchen counter when she got tired of losing them every three days.

“Yes, I’m home. But that doesn’t answer my question: what the fuck? Why are you on a ladder in the middle of my house?”

“It’s not the _middle_ of your house,” Bellamy mutters, always mildly combative. He turns back to face the wall in front of him and fiddles with something before putting his hands on his hips, nodding decisively, and climbing back down.

A clump of mistletoe hangs above the entryway, glowing green and white where it dangles in the light.

Clarke raises an eyebrow.

“You know that stuff’s toxic right?”

“So don’t eat it,” Bellamy shoots back, closing the ladder and returning it to its place.

“I’m just saying, you might want to wash your hands. I’m not actually a doctor; I just do art therapy. I can’t help you if you kill yourself from holiday cheer.” She leans against the counter, watching him scrub his hands while huffing at her, the effect lost by the way his freckles crinkle around the edges of his eyes. “Why are you hanging that here, anyway? You do technically have your own apartment.”

“The Christmas party is here.”

“I’m aware. Octavia’s hosting. Shouldn’t she be doing decorations?”

Bellamy shoots her an unimpressed look. “She’s going to be making Lincoln haul as many cases of booze into his truck as she can until an hour before the party, and we both know that. The library’s already on holiday hours; I figured I’d help out.”

“Okay, fair.”

Clarke heads towards her room, ready to shower and change out of her pastels-stained clothes, and Bellamy moves to the box of decorations waiting in the living room. They pass each other under the arch of the entryway and before Clarke can blink, Bellamy has an arm wrapped around her waist and is smacking a kiss onto her cheek, a little wet and affectionate and with the glint of teeth from where she can feel him grinning, then easily continuing on his way.

Her cheeks are pink by the time she turns the hallway towards the stairs.

Clarke knows Bellamy’s been dancing around something for a while. He hasn’t said anything, hasn’t even _done_ anything big enough to make her certain, but…she knows him. They understand each other in a way that makes her think their souls are made of the same stuff, and other corny ideas like that imprinted on her from years of rom-coms.

She _knows_ him, and he hasn’t acknowledged another woman at a bar in months, tugs her in even tighter than usual against his side on the sofa, refused to sleep at his own house when Clarke caught the flu from a hospitalized patient last month. She doesn’t mind. When he got sick the next week, she wouldn’t let him leave, either.

She knows him, and he knows her.

He just maybe doesn’t see some things as clearly.

When she comes back down, hair dried in soft waves and wearing the jeans that make her legs look best with a red wrap top she’d picked out for the party, Bellamy has the living room decked out. There are lights strung up on all the walls so that everything feels warm and glowing, oversized bows tacked on the bar stools and the back of the sofa, and at least four different candles flickering on different surfaces around the room. There are also three more mistletoe sprigs—that she can see—hanging over the drinks cart, and the sofa, and between two of the bar stools.

Clarke has to laugh.

“You know you don’t actually need mistletoe to kiss people, right?”

“Hm?” Bellamy doesn’t look up from where he’s decorating a little rosemary tree set next to the TV with origami stars and tiny tinkling bells. There’s a strand of tinsel stuck in the dark curls of his hair, though there’s none visible anywhere else in the room.

“The mistletoe. You don’t actually need it to kiss anyone. You’re hot; people like you. They generally wouldn’t protest being kissed by you. I’m your best friend, you can trust me.” Clarke’s smirking now, she can feel it, but Bellamy’s still determinedly turned away from her, tips of his ears turning red.

“Miller’s my best friend. You’re a close second,” he says, but his voice is a little rough and strangled so Clarke just rolls her eyes.

“Okay, whatever, I’m going pick up the cake. The bakery called to say it was ready.”

Clarke leans over the bar to grab her keys, stretching out on her tiptoes, and feels the lightest flutter of pressure against her cheek before she settles back down. Looking up, she realizes she stepped underneath the mistletoe hung there, but Bellamy’s already back across the room by the time she turns to leave.

He’s a little clueless, but she’ll take him anyway.

 

* * *

 

The night is cozy and boozy and riddled with laughter. Clarke’s house is full of people she loves and Bellamy keeps pressing his lips to her cheek (and others’—Miller gets one impressively full swooping kiss halfway through—though he seems less committed) whenever they’re near any clump of mistletoe. She starts out hitting his chest every time while he feigns innocence, but with each successive cup of eggnog or cider or whiskey, she doesn’t bother to cover her pleasure. At one point she yells, “Why so much mistletoe?!?” through bouts of laughter, and Bellamy can’t hide his grin.

She somehow convinces him to sleep in her room, since Monty and Miller claimed the daybed, Jasper’s already passed out on their one bearable armchair, and Raven is snoring on Wells’ chest on the sofa, not to be woken before noon upon threat of death. Bellamy tucks himself on the far side of her bed, flush against the wall, but tangles his hand with hers as he mumbles goodnight.

Clarke wakes up to a new sprig of mistletoe over her bedroom door and an empty bed, but she can’t help smiling anyway.

 

* * *

 

Clarke spends half of Christmas Eve helping Octavia pack and ushering her out of the apartment, assuring her again and again that she’ll be fine staying here for Christmas, _honestly_. Clarke’s mother is visiting her new boyfriend’s family across the country and Octavia’s doing the same with Lincoln’s, and, while both invited her to go, she decided not to add to the stress and instead sleep in her own bed. As far as she knows, all of their friends are undertaking similar journeys for the holiday, and Clarke’s cool with it. Really. She has a stockpile of Christmas movies, the number of her favorite Chinese restaurant on speed dial, and a cherry pie hidden in the back of the fridge. She’s got this.

By the time Clarke’s finally shoving her roommate out of the house, barely on schedule, another bunch of mistletoe has appeared just inside the front door. She rolls her eyes and huffs, but kisses Octavia’s cheek before pulling the door open and rolling her bag through it. Octavia just grins and winks, pulling Clarke in for a hug before wishing her a merry Christmas.

When she turns back to the house, ready to settle in with a movie and something warm, Bellamy has somehow sprawled out on the living room couch without her notice. Clarke leans against the wall to study him: the afternoon sunlight falling through the window grazing across his face and painting shadows under his lowered eyelashes, casting the tendons of his arms into a soft relief where they’re crossed over his chest.

It’s not a bad sight.

“You know we don’t need this much mistletoe, right?”

He opens one eye to look at her and shrugs, shifting so there’s space on the couch next to him. “Technically, nobody really needs mistletoe.”

“What are you doing here, anyway? I thought Octavia invited you to Oregon with her.”

“She did. I didn’t want to intrude. It’s the first time she’s meeting Lincoln’s family; I figured she deserves to do that without me tagging along. And besides, this way you won’t be alone.”

“Ah, you’ve grown, big brother,” Clarke teases, settling next to him with her feet tucked under her body. “And thanks. But, really, do we need to talk about your mistletoe obsession? Because I was serious, we don’t need mistletoe. _You_ don’t need mistletoe.”

She knocks her shoulder with his, but Bellamy just wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her into his side, easy and languid. His lips press cleanly against her cheek before drawing back a little to murmur, “Maybe I like the mistletoe,” and she can feel his breath fan across the back of her neck as she glances at the sprig still hanging above the sofa.

He’s really, _really_ an idiot sometimes, but he’s also warm and comfortable so she lets him keep her tucked up against his body as he turns on the TV and flips to _The Santa Clause_ marathon on ABC Family.

She’ll help him figure it out later.

 

* * *

 

On Christmas morning Clarke wakes up to the smell of coffee and bacon and shuffles out to the kitchen in her snowman pajamas and fuzzy socks to see Bellamy pulling cinnamon rolls out of the oven, hair messy and rarely-seen glasses perched on his nose. He grins when he sees her, and it’s bright and better than anything she’d expected this year, really.

“Merry Christmas, Clarke.”

“Merry Christmas,” she replies, and they fill up plates and mugs and spread out across the living room floor like kids in front of the TV.

They migrate a little throughout the morning, fielding phone calls from friends and family and slipping different movies into the DVD player to heckle and quote in turn. They exchange presents—four different Founding Fathers biographies to complete his unofficial set, and a sketchbook with a set of paintbrushes she’d mentioned lusting over once, two months ago—and generally take pleasure in being lazy and comfortable and close to each other.

Eventually, Clarke gets hungry and stumbles up from her latest position sprawled upside down on the armchair to get dressed.

“I’m getting Golden Palace; you want your usual?”

“Extra spring rolls, please,” he calls back, not bothering to lift his head off of the couch cushion.

The world outside is chilly but the sun is strong and it takes Clarke no time at all to reach the restaurant without snow and ice hindering her journey. When she gets back to the house, the oversized bag of food is still hot enough that she can feel the warmth radiating against her leg. She throws down her jacket and keys in the kitchen and grabs a couple of forks, knowing that they’ll both give up on chopsticks halfway through when they decide they’re too lazy and hungry for it to be worth it, and heads to the living room.

As soon as she’s inside the room, she stops.

The entire space is strung up with mistletoe, sprigs hanging maybe two feet apart at differing heights, and in the center of the room, directly under a bundle of berries so low it almost touches the crown of his head, is Bellamy, hands in his pockets and a crooked smile across his face.

He watches her and she watches him, until finally she breaks her trance and walks to the coffee table and carefully sets the food down. Clarke grabs Bellamy’s arm and drags him towards where the room meets the hallway, which is notably devoid of plants.

He looks confused, then more and more sheepish and apologetic with each step. By the time she stop and turns to face him fully, so close she has to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes, he looks positively remorseful.

“Clarke, I—”

She laughs a little, quietly, and squeezes his hand to cut him off. “I keep telling you, you don’t need mistletoe as an excuse to kiss people.”

Then she surges up on her toes until her mouth is pressed against his, full and soft and running her thumb across his knuckles until he responds, wrapping one arm around her waist and tangling his other hand in her hair, pulling her closer than she’s ever been before. It feels easy and right, and Clarke’s so sated with the heat of his lips and the silk of his curls in her hands that she can’t even bother wondering why neither of them did this before.

Eventually they pull apart, Bellamy nipping small kisses at her bottom lip as they grin. His glasses are crooked where they still sit on his nose and her hair is a mess and the food’s definitely getting cold and she couldn’t care less about any of it.

“Next time I’ll listen.” He brushes a strand of blonde that’s fallen across her eye back before cradling her face in his hands, fingers running softly across her skin with the kind of certainty that only makes sense with Bellamy. Looking at him, flushed and lips swollen and borderline giddy, Clarke can tell this is one of those moments where they coalesce, where everything they want to say is written in the air between them and they can both read it clearly.

She’ll tell him later, in actual words, that this is real and she probably loves him and he’ll probably say the same but, right now, this is enough. She’s got other things in mind.

“Yeah, I know you will,” she says, and pulls him back in to chase his laugh with her own.

After all, they _do_ have a lot of mistletoe to make use of this Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all y'all's love on the holiday fics! They've been fun.
> 
> As usual, I'm on tumblr with fic-related things [here](http://apanoplyoffic.tumblr.com/) and more generally [here](http://apanoplyofsong.tumblr.com/).


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